Friday, December 30, 2011

Wealth Redistribution

There is an interesting article in today's Washington Post about the wealth distribution in the US Congress.  I will select one, Jim Renacci, a local Canton US Congressman whose net worth is $48 million and he is about in the middle of the richest twenty five richest Congressmen.  There are those that will read that article, see the vast polar ice caps of wealth found in our Congressional members and draw all sorts of opinions both positive and negative.  But for me the article cast light on a far greater societal issue which is the apparent strategy by the ruling class in Washington to redistribute wealth. In other words, punish the rich to raise up the poor.  That mentality, so you can know, in my opinion, is counter intuitive to the America I have grown up in and long to remain.

Wealth is a cloud that is hard to measure, harder to compare and even harder to assess implication. But what wealth does do is give us an incentive to work hard, sacrifice, strive, drive to be better than the competition.  Yes there is luck that goes with it. Yes there is manipulation that is party to it. Yes, yes, yes but at the aggregate, for me at least, wealth is a good thing if truly earned.  When I watch the machinery and the rhetoric of wanting to additionally tax the wealthy to close the deficit hole, I find myself wondering why things have eroded so far to relatively quickly!  I have grown up believing and built a career and thus a life on the pretense that if I worked hard, did my best, gave my all, I would find reward in many forms with financial being one. I did not want nor wish someone to take it easy on me, give me an undeserved or unearned break; I only sought equal footing in whatever pathway my life would take and then allow me to do what I needed to do to be, well, a success.  I believe that life has therefore been pretty good in an array of measures.  I say that with all humbleness.

Many years ago I realized, for me at least, that the definition of "rich" as getting up one morning and deciding to not go to work and it would still be alright. You earn the right to have that belief and capability to live that way.  When, today, I see so much activity of seeking to remove that aura of incentive by adding more and more and more safety nets and then wanting those that have "made it" to "pay their fair share" knowing the great, great majority of them have paid their share thus they are being targeted as the enemy of the poor and must be constrained and punished; I have great issues with that mentality.

Go to the Washington Post today and look at the richest and poorest 25 Congress folks and you assess how you feel about that.  I think that is a microcosm of our society today, frankly.  I want wealthy people to be more wealthy. A great CPA friend once told me that paying taxes is a good thing for it means, after all, you are making money. Do not punish those that rightly and rightfully earned their wealth to cover those that choose daily to not do what they can to elevate themselves; that angers and sickens me greatly.  

Hard work pays dividend.  The Bible speaks eloquently about those lazy folks and I detest laziness in people and safety nets incentivize laziness. I HATE SAFETY NETS!

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